The song describes the pleasure and pain of love in terms of colours (blue and grey) and elements (water and wind). The English lyrics ("Blue, blue, my world is blue …") focus on colours only (blue, grey, red, green, and black), using them to describe elements of lost love. The English version by Vicky Leandros also appeared as "Colours of Love" in some locations including the UK.

Greek-born Leandros recorded the song both in French and English, and had a modest hit in Europe with it, but in Japan and Canada she had a big hit with this song. She also recorded it in German (as "Blau wie das Meer"), Italian ("L'amore è blu") and Dutch ("Liefde is zacht") . The song has since become a favourite of Contest fans, most notably appearing as part of a medley introducing the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 in Athens, one of only three non-winning songs to be involved (the others being "Dschinghis Khan" and "Nel blu dipinto di blu").

In late 1967, Paul Mauriat conducted an orchestral "easy listening" version that was a number-one hit in the USA for five weeks in February and March 1968, becoming the only performance by a French artist ever to top the Billboard Hot 100. Its five-week run at the top was second longest of any instrumental of the Hot 100 era next to 1960's "Theme from A Summer Place". It became a gold record. Not surprisingly, the song spent 11 weeks atop Billboard's Easy Listening survey, and held the longest-lasting title honours on this chart for 25 years. Billboard ranked the record as the No. 2 song for 1968.[2] It is the best-known version of the song in the United States. The Mauriat recording also reached number 12 on the UK Singles Chart.